中坜英文补习班│只能说 Yes, I do? 8 Ways to Say Yes!

Yes！是许多人生活中常用单字，也是学英文的时候最一开始学的单字之一，除了yes这个字之外，还有其他单字和yes的意思雷同，你知道有那些吗？一起来看看！

Yes

Yes is a very old word. It entered English before 900, and comes from the Old English word gese loosely meaning "be it." Before the 1600s, yes was often used only as an affirmative to a negative question, and yea was used as the all-purpose way to say "yes."

* loosely ( adv. ) 大约地

* affirmative ( adj. ) 肯定的

Yes是一个很老的单字了，大约在10世纪以前就出现，而她来自于古英文中的gese，意思大概是 “ be it ” 在17世纪前，yes是给否定问句一个肯定的答案时用的，而yea则是比较通用的说法(像是现在的yes)。

Aye [ahy]

This archaism is still used as the formal response meaning "yes" in the British House of Commons. It is also an accepted substitute for yea in a voice vote in the US House of Representatives. When it first entered English, it was often spelled I. Etymologists don't know where it came from, but it appeared suddenly in the late 1500s and is still with us.

* archaism ( n. ) 古语

* the British House of Commons 英国下议院

House of Lords 英国上议院

* the US House of Representatives 美国众议院

United States Senate 美国参议院

* etymologist ( n. ) 字源学者

这个古英语在英国下议院仍然是非常正式的yes的说法，在美国的众议院中，Aye也是一个投票时代替yea的单字，在Aye刚刚进入英文用语中的时候，她通常被拼成 ” I ”，字源学家不知道Aye是从哪个语言文化来的，但是她在16世纪突然出现，至今我们仍然在使用她。

Indubitably [in-doo-bi-tuh-buhl, -dyoo-]

The word indubitably, like many words with a negative prefix, comes from its internal root, dubitable. Strangely though, the negative variation has always been more popular than its root. They both come from the Latin word dubitare meaning "to doubt."

* prefix ( n. ) 字首

Indubitably有一个否定的字首，而字根dubitable是「可疑的、不确定的」。奇怪的是，indubitably这个否定字比dubitable还要多人使用，而indubitably和dubitable都是来自拉丁文dubitare，意思是“ to doubt ”。

OK [oh-key, oh-key, oh-key]

The origin of this common Americanism has been disputed, but it most likely came from the 1840 American presidential election in which politicos facetiously misspelled all correct as oll korrect and abbreviated it OK. The alternately spelled okay arose in the early 1900s. There are other apocryphal tales of it coming from military jargon, but we'll leave those for another day.

* presidential ( adj. ) 总统的

* facetiously ( adv. ) 滑稽的

* apocryphal ( adj. ) 作者不明的

* jargon ( n. ) 行话 ; 黑话

OK这个字的来源非常有争议，但是最有可能的说法是1840年的总统选举时，政客不小心拼错了all correct ，变成oll korrect然后简写成OK，而OK的另一种拼法在1900年左右兴起，也有其他种说法是OK来自于军中的行话。

Sure [shoor, shur]

Sure is related to the Old French word of the same spelling which meant "safe" or "secure." The word was used to mean "safe" until the early 1500s. In the mid-1500s, sure started to take on senses of "certainly" and "indubitably," which helped introduce popular phrases such as "to be sure" and "for sure" to English speakers. The common Americanism "sure thing" arose in the 1800s.

* Americanism ( n. ) 美国风格

Sure和古法文有相同拼音，意思是「安全的」，到1500年以前这个字一直都是做为「安全」之意，到了1500年中期，sure开始有「确定地、不可怀疑地」的意思，同时也引进了to be sure和for sure这些用法给说英语的人们，美式风格强烈的用法sure thing则是在1800年开始出现。

Yeah [yai]

This common casual variation of yes arose in the early 20th century in America. It is likely a drawled version of its formal cousin. Since the 1980s, its usage has risen dramatically, more than three times its previous usage.

* drawl ( n. ) 慢吞吞拉长调子的说话方式

Yeah出现在20世纪初期的美国，她应该是正式说法的拉长版，从1980年代之后，越来越多人使用 Yeah。

Yay [yey]

This possible alternative spelling of yeah appeared in the 1960s, and may be a variation on the word hooray. However, it remains the least used among our yes alternatives.

* hooray ( v. ) 欢呼

Yay是yeah的另一种拼法，大约出现在1960年代，也有可能是hooray的另一种说法，然后她是yes说法中最少用到的。

And how !

If the aforementioned yes alternatives are too run-of-the-mill for your tastes, try and how! This Americanism emerged in the 1800s and is used in a number of affirming ways, along the lines of "no mistake, very much so!" "certainly!" and "you bet!"

* aforementioned ( adj. ) 上述的

* run-of-the-mill 普通的

如果上述yes的用法你觉得太普通，试试看And how吧！这种用法出现在1800年代，通常用于肯定的时候，也会加上"no mistake, very much so!" 、 "certainly!" 和"you bet!"等等语句。